CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli, who was ousted from the government by the Gen Z protests earlier this month, has said that he will not flee Nepal by handing over the country to the present government.

Speaking at an event organised by the party’s youth wing at Gundu, Bhaktapur, he said, “Do you think we will flee the country by handing over the country to this groundless government?”

Addressing a gathering of loyal party cadres, he claimed that they were the ones who would build this country. “We will bring this country back into the constitutional mainstream. We will return it to peace and good governance,” he said in his first address in a public programme, 18 days after fleeing the prime minister’s official residence Baluwatar. After staying under Nepali Army’s security protection for nine days, he moved to a rented home at Gundu on September 18 as his personal home at Balkot, Bhaktapur was burnt down by protesters on September 9.

Oli accused the current government of not being formed through the people’s mandate, but rather through vandalism and arson.

Claiming that he was not engaged in any conspiracies, he challenged the Sushila Karki government to release the recordings of what instructions he had given to the administration and security agencies at the time. “Publish them with courage. Make public the instructions I gave to government employees, the directives at the time.”

He accused the Karki government of not providing him with security despite threats of attacks after his current residence was located. “On social media, it’s being said, ‘Let’s locate KP Oli’s new house and launch an attack.’ What is the government doing? Just watching?” he said.

He also expressed his objection to the government’s move that has reportedly decided to withhold passports of Oli, Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba, Arzu Rana Deuba, Ramesh Lekhak and Deepak Khadka, among others. Arzu Rana Deuba, Lekhak and Khadka were foreign, home and energy ministers, respectively, in the Oli government.

“Now the government is talking about revoking my privileges, withholding my passport, filing cases against me. They’re throwing the country into insecurity—shouldn’t they be responsible for ensuring security?”

His government was toppled on the second day of the Gen Z protest but the then prime minister Oli and home minister Lekhak have been widely condemned for taking the lives of dozens of people using excessive force in the protests.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has blamed the Oli government’s failure to anticipate the intensity of the Gen Z demonstrations as well as the declining morale of security agencies for the huge loss of lives and properties on September 8 and 9.

Issuing a brief monitoring report on Friday, the constitutional human rights watchdog said the first half of the first day of protest on September 8 was peaceful. “Monitoring revealed that the deaths caused by police firing on the first day led to indiscriminate arson and vandalism on the second day,” the NHRC report reads.